Tuesday, May 17, 2022

The Approved Kitchen

      Another week or so is down and we're making progress.

     The biggest news of the week is that we are now an approved kitchen!!  We have a food permit to sell to the public and to others for resale.  We will hopefully be using that within a of couple weeks.

     I knew this was one of my first goals, so I've been concentrating on the kitchen to begin with.  Since it was an approved kitchen before, there wasn't a whole lot that had to be done, but it needed to be cleaned up and a few things taken care of.  

     The countertop was pulling away from the wall just enough that there was a hole in the silicone, so I resealed that with new silicone.

     The vinyl on the floor right up against the cabinets was frayed and broken.  I didn't want to replace the vinyl, especially since this is only a temporary kitchen until we remodel upstairs to make our nice kitchen.  I thought about using silicone, but thought that although it may seal it, it would be messy and not look good.  I finally came up with the idea of getting some quarter round from Home Lumber (couldn't find a page to link) and staining it.  It worked perfectly, covering up and sealing the bad vinyl.

     The lighting at the counters wasn't bad.  I think by code, it probably would have been fine, but I wanted a little more.  I ordered just basic, rechargeable led lights to stick under each cabinet.

     Of course, everything needed wiped down and cleaned since it hadn't been used in a while.

     And finally, I noticed the faucet on the sink leaked out of the top and the seal between the sink and faucet was bad, so it leaked underneath a bit.  There inlays a story of the amateur plumber. :)

     


     (If you want the short version, I had a bit of a time getting the faucet replaced as well as having to replace the shut offs underneath, but I managed after a couple days.  Now you can skip to the next pictures.)

     If you've been reading the blog so far, you know that I had the plumber hat on last week as well.  It took a while, but I successfully figured out how to get an air gap in the drain for the sink.

     I figured this little faucet leak was an easy fix.  So I went to True Value again and got a new faucet.  I got under the sink, turned the water off and took out the old faucet, easy.  I put the new faucet on, siliconed it in and connected it, easy.  I knew it wouldn't be a hard replacement.

     But then, I turned the water back on.  I guess these shut offs hadn't been turned off in a while.  They leaked like crazy before I ever even had the chance to test the faucet.  (Don't leave yet, it gets better.)

     So now, I need to figure out how to turn the water off before the shut offs.  I go behind the wall (yes, it's so nice to have a 4' walkway behind the wall) and start tracing the pipes.  The nearest shut off I can find for the hot water is at the hot water heater, which isn't too far away, but also shuts off the hot water for the hand wash sink and the two bathrooms.  The cold water, on the other hand, has a shut off about half way to the hot water heater, but it's knob is missing.  I keep tracing and figure out that to shut the cold water off, I'm going to have to shut the water off where it comes in to the building.

     I open the lines to drain the pipes as much as possible.  The hot water, only runs for a few seconds, but the cold water seems to keep running longer than I think it should, and then more yet.  It can't be coming from the main, I shut it off before the water meter.  Then the water starts getting warmer?!  That's when I think about one of the pipes I passed getting to the main shut off - an off shoot that came down, had a shut off and then went up through the ceiling.  I realized this must be the water supply for the apartment all the way upstairs, and it has it's own hot water heater - I'm draining that hot water heater through the cold water faucet in the basement.  I went and turned it off, and the water finally stopped.

     I start trying to get the shut offs under the sink off with the tools that I have so I can take them with me to True Value to get new ones.  In trying to do all of this, I have ended up taking the drain pipes (yes, my beautiful air gap drain pipes) back out so that I can get to the water lines easier.  I had managed to install the faucet with only knocking one fitting loose.  These shut offs aren't going to let me get them off that easily.  I finally give up and wait until the next day to get new shut offs and a pipe wrench to do the job correctly.

     It's a couple days later before I get a chance to work on it again, but I got the pipe wrench and the new shut offs.  I go back to work on it and as I'm getting the first shut off loose, I know I'm getting somewhere because it starts dripping, letting the water behind it out.  I grab a bucket, put underneath and continue.  Until I get it off and water is SPRAYING out.

     I forgot that I had turned the water back on after the failed attempt a couple days ago.  Luckily, I was working on the hot water, which the shut off is much closer and easier to get to, but it's still 30 feet away, through two doorways and in a hallway that doesn't have much light unless you go 10 feet away from the water heater to a pull chain light.  Needless to say, for the next half hour, I was cleaning up water from under the sink and all over the floor.  My bucket didn't catch hardly any! :)  Plus, come to find out, I had purchased the wrong shut offs - I had ones with the threads on the outside of the 3/8" side - I needed the threads on the inside.  But, of course, True Value, only two blocks away, makes an easy exchange, so that was only an annoyance, not a problem.

     The rest went fine and I now have a working kitchen sink again.

Our temporary kitchen - before

Our temporary kitchen - after

     With all the work that was done, the state health inspector had no problem giving us our food permit with only a couple things that I had forgotten that I still needed to do, such as having hand wash signs at all the hand sinks and a policy printed out for how we will clean up if someone throws up, etc... very minor things.


     The other thing we accomplished Sunday, when I had my family to help and plenty of time, was cleaning the front windows.  And when I say clean, I don't mean just running some soapy water and a squeegee over them.  No.  After about 4 hours of my mom, my sister and myself scraping and peeling, we got all the old vinyl wording and logos off the windows.

     We now have beautiful, clean & clear windows ready for whatever we decide to do.  I know the furthest two windows to the south, I plan to put a photo op on - using the dotted window coverings.  It will serve a quadruple purpose.

  1. Let passersby know what the business is about, at least in some way.
  2. A photo op that will hopefully be cute enough we'll have a lot of people using it and posting on social media - YAY, free advertising.
  3. Shade the kid's room from the harsh morning sun since we will not be able to get an awning ($15,000 for the kind we want) to begin with and since there are no buildings on the east side of the street to block the sun in the mornings.
  4. Provide privacy from the outside for the kid's room.  If you put your face right up against the window, you can kind of see in, but otherwise, it's really hard to see through that stuff from the outside.  From the inside, you can see out nearly unobstructed.
     The rest of the windows, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with.  I don't know if I want to put vinyl on them again with our name, logo, products, etc. or if I want to hang signs that can change from time to time much easier.  We'll see as the time comes.

     Thank you, once again, for reading our post.  Let us know if you're enjoying it.  If you can't comment here (my mom had trouble getting it to allow her to comment), then let us know on facebook, instagram or twitter.



Monday, May 9, 2022

Week 1 (plus a little)

     Here we go....

     Before we started doing any work, we wanted to do some "before" stuff.  I had planned to do a live walk-through on Facebook Friday evening, but I didn't get a chance to wander through much during the day to get prepared, including figuring out the lights.  I believed they were on a breaker, but all the breakers seemed to be fine so I wanted to get some new bulbs to try.  However, by the time I discovered this, all the stores in town were closed.  So, I pushed the live event back to Saturday evening.

     By Saturday evening, I was more prepared, but still hadn't figured out the lights for the two large rooms - the new bulbs didn't fix the problem.  So I adjusted the spot lights that were working to provide the best lighting I could and went for it anyway.  I was planning on starting to move stuff in on Sunday.

Watch on YouTube or Facebook
(Bare with me, I need to get a better at videos!)

     I also went through the entire building and took "before" photos - nearly 200 in total.  You'll get to see many of those throughout the build-out process, I'm sure!


     Sunday came and it was time to get several things I had in storage units moved in to the store.  I'm not ready to use them yet, but why pay storage fees when I have a lot of extra room I'm not using anyway.  This included several large (and very heavy) display cases, a refrigerator, freezer, gas stove, prep table cooler, and dishwasher.

     

more photos on Instagram

     There are a few big Thank You's I want to send out.

     Thank you to Rachel Witt for working with me and being so patient.  We've been working to get this building for around 10 months now!  She has also gone above and beyond expectations to help me get the building, has included many items with the building that will help me along, and is/has cleaned up beyond what is necessary for someone to do after the building has already been sold.

     Thank you to Jones Air Conditioning for cutting us some pipes to roll the display cases on.

     Thank you to Randy Gilsdorf for securing a trailer as well as helping move and Derek Olberding, my mom, Vernell Schutte, and my sister, Danielle Schutte, for also helping to move all of this equipment.


     Through the week, I explored the building a lot to see what all was where, hidden rooms, what controlled what, etc.   I also started my first, simple project that I believe I will have to do to get a food license.  There now has to be an air gap in the drain of whatever sinks you're going to use as a prep sink.  There currently was not one.

     I originally planned on putting the air gap on the right sink drain since, to me, it seemed like the logical side to put it looking at the drain pipes, especially considering the dishwasher drains in to the left side.

I forgot to take a before - the right side was originally attached

     I ran in to problem after problem.  These drain pipes aren't the same standard size as the PVC pipes that have the reducer (the cup to catch the water).  So when the drain pipe said right on it that it was 1 1/2" and I got the 3" to 1 1/2" reducer, it slid right through the hole.  Drain pipe under a sink is measured "inside dimension", whereas the regular PVC drain pipe is measure "outside diameter."

     I finally figured out I could use a rubber reducer to go from the 1 1/2" outside diameter to the 1 1/2" insider diameter.  First problem solved.

     I am sitting at my store looking at the parts I have thinking that I figured it out, only to realize that the reducer itself is nearly the full height of the pipe I had taken off and was going to cut for the drain.  I still had to have 1" air gap AND the height of the rubber reducer AND the height of the pipe going between the two reducers.  This wasn't going to work - now what?

     I finally came up with the brilliant idea to put the air gap on the left drain instead of the right one and add in a second trap to get the pipe starting at a lower position.  Once I came up with this idea, went to the stores for the 4th or 5th time, and tried my idea, it worked!!

I figured out how to get an air gap!

     Another round of Thank You's are due.  Thank You to True Value and Ace Hardware Farm & City Supply for putting up with me coming in, bugging you and picking your brains trying to figure out how to do this, as well as the parts to do it.  And a extra Thank You to Brett Keller at Farm & City Supply for not making me buy a full stick of 1 1/2" PVC for the 4 inches that I needed! :)


     And finally, the last newsworthy, and slightly disappointing tidbit from this first week.

    In the large back rooms on the main floor, the north side will be the kitchen, the south side will be comfortable seating, I was hoping to take the pegboard down to expose the brick walls on the outside walls.  I thought this would be a neat look and you could see the brick above the peg board.

     Turns out, once I removed the peg board, the brick was only just above it.  Behind the peg board, there is a concrete type mixture on the wall.  So much for the brick look!  I was also hoping that when I took the peg board off the inside walls here, I would be greeted with a nice white wall like above the peg board there.  Disappointment again.  It's plain, unpainted drywall on the upper half, and what looks like glue from possibly carpet from when it was a theatre on the bottom half.  But, these are easy enough to work with, just not what I had been hoping for.



     When I took the first panel of peg board down, I found this.  Does anyone know for sure who's name that is?  I think I can read it, but not sure.




     Our first week is down.... we have a long, looong way to go.  But we're extremely excited to be doing this.  Be sure to like our Facebook page so you know when we publish new blog posts and all the other great things we share on there.

     And Thank YOU for taking the time to read through, follow us on our journey and support as in anyway you can.  That is the best gift we could ask for!


We have a home!!

We are so excited to have finally officially gotten our new home on Thursday, April 28th, 2022!  We will be located at 1715 Stone St. in Falls City, Nebraska.  Now comes the build-out part, getting it ready.


You are invited to come along and see what all it takes for us to get everything ready.  We'll post regularly - maybe not every week, but quite often - so you can see the progress as it's being made.  Feel free to ask any questions, leave any comments, or send us suggestions.  We love to hear from you!

There are several ways to follow along with other aspects of our new shop as well.

Choose your favorites and follow along.  Leave us words of encouragement and ideas you would like to see!

      

Save Money…. Buy Used

I need A LOT of equipment.  And a lot of that equipment is not cheap equipment.  Just in the main ice cream machines I have purchased - 3 ro...